


Veritas

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [46]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers being assholes, Clones, Gen, Humor, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23715688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Torrent's officers have recently started a new tradition: they drink and askslightlypersonal, mostly juvenile questions.  They end up closer for it.
Relationships: CT-6116 | Kix/CT-5597 | Jesse
Series: Soft Wars [46]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 48
Kudos: 668





	Veritas

**Author's Note:**

> Oh hey I sat down to write a prompt. This happened. This is not that prompt.
> 
> Just some boys being boys.

“Okay. Dumbest bright idea.”

Rex catches the pauldron aimed at his head, tosses it up a couple of times while he thinks. “Dumbest thing that was my idea or dumbest idea I was a part of?”

“Whichever is funnier,” Hardcase decides.

“The Shebse took me to maneuvers and tried to convince 17 I’d always been part of their squad, and since I was I should move into their dorm.”

Kix groans. “No. No one thought that was going to work.” Jesse and Hardcase both cackle.

“I don’t know if you know this but ‘thinking’ wasn’t a thing that the Shebse did,” Rex shares with a grin over his beer. “An individual Shebs can think. Once you have a bunch of them intelligence plummets.”

“We didn’t need to know that about the CCs,” the medic protests.

“Oh yes we did!” Jesse corrects immediately. He ducks and fumbles the pauldron Rex throws. His beer is nearly a victim. Rex might not have those little mini carpets all over his quarters like Ponds and Cody do but he’s still not interested in having to mop a sticky floor. Whatever Tinker’s done to the mousedriods recently have made them _opinionated_ on the types of messes they’re willing to tackle. Apparently they don’t do sticky. Tinker muttered something about unionizing and refused to say a word more.

Jesse’s lucky he manages to catch his bottle before it spills.

“First kiss,” Rex demands.

Jesse shoots him that lofty, I’m-above-these-shenanigans look. “Kix.”

“Banthashit.” They _all_ know that’s banthashit but if anyone should be allowed to call him out on it, it’s Kix. “First time I kissed you, you karking knew what you were doing.”

“But _my darling love_ ,” Jesse simpers in the galaxy’s worst impression of an Alderaanian soap opera.

Kix takes the pauldron and smacks him with it, and then steals his beer for good measure.

It’s a fairly new thing, them gathering like this. They’ve always been friendly, of course, and they work very well together. But it’s only recently they’ve taken that last step from ‘friendly’ to ‘friends’. Rex thinks he kind of likes it.

Jesse pitches the pauldron back overhand at Rex’s head and glares when he catches it. “ _Your_ first kiss,” he challenges. He must have lost the argument with Kix while Rex was distracted.

“Pass,” Rex replies primly.

“Veto veto veto!” Hardcase sings. “I’m using my veto here Captain and I’m using it hard.”

What happened to that loud but shy little ball of shiny he once knew? “You used to be so polite,” Rex mourns in faux self pity. Everyone jeers.

“Hardcase was most definitely giving you shit in his head Rex,” Jesse corrects. “Just now he says it out loud.” Hardcase toasts him.

“You’re not wrong,” he admits. “Veto sir. First kiss.”

Rex groans. Maybe he was a little too premature for pronouncing this ‘friend’ thing an improvement on the situation. He can’t even think up a lie that would save this. “Commander Bacara,” he grumbles. “21st Nova.”

The jeers in response to that are _incredible_.

“If a _single word_ gets back to the Shebse about that I am demoting every single one of you and assigning you to the Wolfpack,” Rex growls. They all know its not a threat that has any teeth, considering how much time Rex spends fighting to keep them.

Hardcase looks _particularly_ gleeful. “The _Marine!_ _When? How!”_ During ARC training, when they were both a little tired and a lot lonely, but Rex is hardly about to dig this battlefield trench any wider. Jesse’s already looking like he’s itching for something to take notes on. Rex pitches the pauldron at Hardcase with some force.

“What the kark is with you and the Wolfpack?” he asks instead.

“I don’t remember!” Hardcase says cheerfully.

The three other officers look at him askance.

“Were you drunk?” Kix asks waspishly. Hypocritically, in Rex’s view, considering the flush he has on the top of his ears and the base of his neck has nothing to do with how warm it is in quarters.

“Nah, I just don’t remember. It’s been a while. Those guys suck though. One day I’m gonna show em what for.”

That’s… pretty par for the range, for Hardcase.

Rex catches the pauldron aimed at his chest. “Was he good?” Hardcase asked. This cheeky little shithead.

“Pass,” he pronounces flatly, and pitches the pauldron back.

All three groan. Rex stands firm.

“ _I’d_ want to brag about it, if I managed to lay one on _the Marine,_ ” Hardcase mutters, but subsides at Rex’s glare. He pitches the pauldron at Kix. Opens his mouth.

Hardcase and Kix’s eyes meet. Kix very slowly drains what used to be Jesse’s drink. Hardcase promptly reconsiders what he was going to ask.

“Teach me that,” Rex demands. “I’ll make Stitches take all the middle shifts for a month.” Kix smirks his way.

“Sorry Captain, medics only. But I’ll tell Stitches you were so eager to volunteer him.”

He won’t. Sometime within the next 20 hours Stitches will do something to piss Kix off again, and Kix will assign him middle shifts anyway.

“Most embarrassing injury you’ve seen.” Hardcase goes for the safe bet.

“Well someone did once show up at my door at 4 am with an infected face tattoo they got on the cheap in a Coruscant under-surface alley somewhere,” Kix deadpans.

Rex can’t tell if Jesse’s getting easier to read or worse at looking innocent.

It’s effective though. Kix relents.

“Pretty much every time there’s a scramble exercise someone gets their deece slammed between their codpiece and cuisse,” he says. Everyone cringes. “Yes _exactly_. Take an extra karking second to look where those are going for Force’s sake.” He pops open another beer and pitches the empty clean into the trash chute. “ _Nobody_ wants to deal with that,” he says with some asperity. “Not you, not your medic.”

Rex had run a scramble exercise two days ago. He cringes again. Kix tips his bottle pointedly. Rex apologizes with his eyes.

The pauldron comes flying at him.

“When do we go home?”

Three sets of eyes lock on to him immediately.

Orders are starting to come down. Slow, quiet, careful not to grab attention. It’s easier for Torrent: their General is Vod. Most vode have to tread far more cautiously, living under the orders of Others. Few things are ever said aloud. But Cody’s gotten confirmation from every command unit in the GAR. Every single one has pledged to him. Movement’s all that’s left.

Coincidentally, one of the last to accept had been 21st Nova. The only longer holdout had been Coruscant Guard.

“Pass,” Rex says and throws it back.

‘ _Six months. Less. Declarative,’_ he signs. _‘Three months. Less. Potentially.’_ He pauses, thinks, refuses to promise anything he’s unsure of. He’s sure enough of this. _‘Likely.’_

Jesse’s grabbed Kix’s arm and they’ve swayed into one another. They’d decided not to declare anything to each other, Jesse had confessed to him once. Not until they knew they owned what they were promising. Kix turns his head against Jesse’s and Rex aches for them. So close. _So close_.

“I want to hunt ‘stalkers,” Hardcase declares viciously. _‘All of us_ ,’ he signs. _‘Full four.’_

They’ve each gone to Concord Dawn at least once on dropoff, spent a day or two building or hunting or just breathing its air. But Rex understands what he means. They’ve never, not once since Torrent was formed, hunted as a unit. There’s never been a time they could afford to all disappear at once, not without being noticed.

“Yeah,” Rex says, and doesn’t let his voice choke up. “Yeah Hardcase, we’ll make that happen.” Torrent’s command is perfectly tactically balanced; they’ll be glorious. Oya1 Torrent. Oya.

He and Hardcase give Kix and Jesse a moment, ignore the quiet laughing-nearly-crying mutters the two of them share.

Hardcase grins at Rex, rolls his eyes at them pointedly. ‘I hope one day you fall in love, you meatbread,’ Rex thinks, fond. ‘I can’t wait to point and laugh.’

The pauldron flips to Rex in a gentle arc. He snatches it out of the air easily.

“So,” says Kix and dashes the edges of his eyes against the inside of his wrist. Jesse’s curled behind him, chin hooked over his shoulder and happier than Rex has seen him. “Captain. About Commander Bacara.”

Rex groans. The conversation promptly devolves.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. General cheer. Lit. 'Let's Hunt!' In context, used literally. Back  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Professional Care](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741473) by [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506)




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